


Diamonds

by suite1812



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29287788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suite1812/pseuds/suite1812
Summary: Dan still pines for Blair. Maybe he always will.
Relationships: Chuck Bass/Blair Waldorf, Chuck Bass/Dan Humphrey, Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Dan Humphrey/Serena van der Woodsen, Serena van der Woodsen/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Diamonds

February 2021

Dan let out a breath and shut off his phone.

He’d done it. Booked a date with another woman on Hinge. The pandemic dating wasn’t ideal, of course, but in a way it was more comfortable for someone like him— someone who preferred to get acquainted with people slowly, not all at once. The digital aspect provided a nice barrier. A safety net. If they didn’t hit it off after the first date, he could just un-match her and save them both the embarrassment. Plus, the chances of running into a failed date in public were much lower now, given the whole stay-at-home thing.

But this was going to be the seventh date since he had recovered from his divorce with Serena back in early 2020. Thank god, it had been a civil split. They respected each other— they had been through too much to make a scene with the divorce. They were on good terms. All of them. Good, yet bittersweet. But wasn’t that the preferred alternative to bitterness?

Anyway. The seventh date.

And not a single one stuck. God, what was it? What was holding him back?

His cellphone buzzed.

Jenny

_-So.... update on Madison please? It’s been more than 24 hours!!! did she confirm yet?_

Dan smiled and typed a reply.

_-Yep. We’re meeting today at 1 pm in Central Park._

As expected, Jenny’s next five messages came rapid-fire.

_-OMG I KNEW IT!_

_-I literally knew it_

_-She’s in LOVE with you_

_-Woooohooooooooo!!!!_

_-Please don’t screw it up_

Dan nose-exhaled a laugh, shaking his head. Jenny really knew how to boost his confidence. Sort of.

Though he knew she meant it in fun, a wave of anxiety rolled over him. _Don’t screw it up._ Well, he’d sure as hell try not to.

This felt like a good time for some sisterly reassurance.

_-Jen are you free to FaceTime right now?_

A minute passed, then her message popped up.

_-Eek, no I can’t, I’m actually on a zoom meeting with Blair & the design team rn!! I shouldn’t even be texting.. lmao_

_-In 45 min or so, yeah let’s ft_

Dan’s brows twitched.

He felt an unwelcome pang reading Blair’s name. He hadn’t interacted with her since before the pandemic started, and even then she had been slightly standoffish with him. Understandable, since he had just divorced her best friend. Women stuck with each other in times like those.

(Women, and family, which naturally included Chuck. Any semblance of a friendship he may have had with Chuck, whether it was based purely on tolerating each other or, by a weak chance, even genuine companionship, had mostly deteriorated the moment Serena and Dan had announced their divorce. Dan convinced himself he didn’t miss their ornery you-suck-but-I’ll-humor-you pseudo-friendship. Though Chuck had improved somewhat over the years he was innately an evil bastard, by definition.)

Jenny knew about Dan’s lingering infatuation with Blair, but it still seemed like she didn’t fully grasp it. It was a topic he didn’t like to bring up much, especially since Jenny was basically Blair’s right-hand girl, and was significantly more involved in the Waldorf heiress’s life than he was nowadays. 

All Jenny would say about his attachment to Blair was “Some things just aren’t meant to be.” Then again, that’s what she said about Serena too.

He sent Jenny one last message before getting up to prepare for his date.

_-Ok. Talk to ya later. I mean, after your service to the Queen._

Chuckling to himself, Dan hopped in the shower and let his mind swim in the memory of his and Blair’s last real interaction.

\---

January 2020

_After eating dinner alone, he wanted to stop by Lily’s penthouse and see Serena. She was staying with her mother while the divorce was being worked out. He didn’t have a plan, just felt like he needed to explain something. What words would come out of his mouth, he didn’t know. It was numbing, realizing that he didn’t have anything concrete to say to her. It had all been flushed out. Squeezed dry._

_Dan stepped out of the elevator into the tastefully opulent room he’d been in and out of constantly since he was sixteen. Immediately he noticed the people in the sitting area, talking quietly. Serena, Nate, Blair. Scanning the area for Chuck (feeling like a deer on high alert for a possible leopard camouflaged in the foliage), he spotted him standing in the hallway to the right, sleeping toddler in arms. He was staring right at Dan, the expression on his face unsmiling yet somehow not hostile— seeming to say,_ I get why you’re here, but is it a good idea?

_Before Dan could form a facial response Chuck turned and walked down the hallway._

_Dan walked forward without stopping. By the time he reached the couches, all three pairs of eyes were on him._

_“Dude,” Nate spoke first. “Now’s not the time.”_

_Serena wasn’t crying. She was staring into space, her body bent over, elbows on her knees, chin resting on one palm._

_“I.. I know,” Dan said tentatively. “I just wanted to see Serena.”_

_Blair sighed, her eyes snapping to his face. “Well, here she is. You see her. Anything else before we bid you goodnight?”_

_Blair’s hand rested on Serena’s back. Her dark brown hair was gently curled, and she wore a sage green cashmere sweater that showed off her collarbones. Her diamond ring caught the light and cut into his eye._

_“Serena,” Dan pronounced, his eyes stuck on Blair even after her face turned back to her best friend. “Can we... can we talk for a minute? I just want to make sure you’re—“_

_“Not now, okay, Dan?” Serena cut in. “I’m just really tired. You know I don’t have anything against you. We already talked through everything. It’s okay. Please, just... I’m tired right now.” Pushing her hand through her hair, she stood up from the couch and walked towards the staircase._

_“S...” Blair called weakly, standing up with Nate, who shook his head at her and went to follow Serena._

_Dan stood there, feeling dumb and useless. Mistake, mistake, mistake, he thought. Why am I even here? I should have stayed home. He watched Blair sigh and cross her arms, her body still facing the stairs where Serena and Nate climbed slowly._

_“I think we all can agree that you’ve beat it to death,” Blair told him. She sounded tired, too. “Serena needs time alone. Alone, as in without you around. And by the way, none of us are mad at you. This is just... part of the process.”_

_Dan nodded, looking at the floor. “I get it.”_

_“No issues?”_

_“Issues? I wasn’t going to—“ he started, then looked up to realize who Blair was addressing. Chuck had returned, and Blair looked at him expectantly._

_“None,” Chuck replied quietly. “He’s knocked out. Already drooling.” It registered in Dan’s mind that they were referring to their sleeping son._

_“Thank god,” Blair whispered. The couple shared a look, their lips hiding smiles._

_Dan watched them settle beside each other on the couch. He noticed Chuck’s dress shirt was the same sage green as Blair’s sweater. Of course._

_“Hey... look, guys. I didn’t mean to cause any... I mean, I didn’t know you’d all be here. I just wanted to check on her.”_

_“It’s fine, Dan,” Blair said, finally looking back at him. “No one blames you. I think... we all knew this was coming.”_

_“You did? What, let me guess,” Dan mumbled, “you had a bet going. That’s something you two would do.” He smiled ironically, looking at both of them._

_Chuck glared back with callous eyes. “Humphrey, we all knew it was coming because... you weren’t choosing her.” Oh boy, here came the preaching._

_“Oh! So you do blame me. Nice to hear some honesty.”_

_“She wasn’t choosing you either,” Chuck sneered. “Love means choosing each other, over and over again. You and Serena-“_

_“Yeah, uh, I didn’t come here for your sage wisdom, Chuck.”_

_“Then why are you still here?” Blair exclaimed. “Serena’s not talking to you tonight! Just go home, Dan, please...” she trailed off, her eyes closing. Closing off to him._

_The last he saw of her that night before he stepped into the elevator was her beautiful head resting on Chuck’s shoulder._

_Some things just aren’t meant to be..._

\---

February 2021

An hour and a half later, Dan was trudging through the snowy park to the meeting spot he and Madison had agreed on. Armed with some fresh optimism after FaceTiming with Jenny, he faced the park’s landscape, his eyes peeled for any sign of his date. She said she’d be wearing a forest green coat.

The park was dotted with people here and there, keeping their distance. The snow provided a kind of soundproof blanket, so all voices were slightly muffled along with the crunching of boots into snow.

Through the relative peace, a few sounds made their way to Dan’s ears. The sounds tempted his eyes search for the source, and he found them, unrecognizable to anyone except someone who knew them well.

Blair and Chuck stood in the snow, playing with their boys. Chuck crouched down and lifted the littler one up high. A shriek could be heard, then Blair’s laughter. Henry rolled around in the snow like a steamroller and Chuck set his younger son back down to join in. The brothers became covered in snow like two powdered donuts. Blair kneeled down to brush it off them.

Dan was transfixed. The world closed in around the far-away vision in front of him. He felt his eyes become telescopes. Masochistic telescopes.

It was always this way.

He found himself constantly trying to see through her. Trying to pick up on some secret beneath the surface, some sign that she might be less than satisfied with her life. It never showed up. When he slept, Dan dreamed that she’d call him late at night, crying, begging him to come get her. It felt real, in those dreams, and even when he woke up. It felt real all the way up until the now-rare occasions that he saw her in person. And he couldn’t see a thing. If he ever did have a Blair-scope at some point in his life, it was now malfunctioning.

All he could see was the proud smile, the glittering eyes, her small fingers tugging her husband’s scarf or Henry’s hat. He could see the quick movements of her mouth as she spoke, and that haughty smirk, and the raising of her eyebrows in surprise or enthusiasm. Her lips molding against Chuck’s, her eyes closing in calm bliss.

The diamond on her finger.

That was all he saw now. He supposed now that he was detached from Serena, his connection to the Waldorf-Bass family would slowly disintegrate as well.

As he watched them in the snow, it felt like the day he had seen, for the first time, that ring hanging around her neck. How it sparkled and rested between her breasts, as she clung to Chuck like he was her seeing-eye-dog or something.

It was also like a number of other moments. Her impromptu wedding to Chuck, and the way she smiled while being kissed. The way Chuck nodded with sleep deprivation back at the penthouse, and she held his heavy head as gently as one would a baby. Months later, her stomach swelling and her cheeks rosy, her husband seemed to boast his fertility and consequent manliness by knocking up his wife. That’s what it felt like to Dan, at least. Then his former schoolmates’ new parenthood thrusted them into the spotlight yet again. Blair’s motherly bosom was burned into his memory. Though he never saw it, he could clearly imagine how she nursed her son.

Her son, who shined with her features. Chuck’s features were fighting through. Dan hoped that hers won out.

Yet Chuck had weaseled his way back into her womb, and their second son was born a year after Dan and Serena’s wedding. It was a draining feeling, knowing that with each day, each month, each year, time was running out. Blair was pulling further away.

That was how Dan felt, standing in the bright, almost hot sunlight, the white glare of the snow stinging his eyes, and making it harder to see the little family of four.

“Dan?”

A bit startled, he turned his head. A woman stood a few feet away, bending slightly to the side in a way that suggested she didn’t want to bother him in case she had mistaken his identity. She waved her gloveless hand, pink from the cold. She wore a forest green coat.

“Um... I’m Madison? Y’know... Hinge?” She pulled her mask down, revealing a familiar face.

Dan chuckled nervously as he realized his date had arrived. Nervous, yes, but glad that she seemed to be similarly embarrassed. They were in the same boat.

“Oh! Hey! You found me. It’s kind of a miracle you did, I mean, this park is massive,” he stumbled, thanking god or the universe or whatever that she had shown up. And she did look like her Hinge profile photos.

Madison laughed. “Do you mind if I take off my mask? It’s getting, like, super damp. You know, condensation. It’s so gross.”

“Yeah, yeah, by all means. We’re outside anyway. I’ll just make sure not to sneeze on you.”

She laughed again. It was going well.

“So,” she chirped, “where do you wanna go? Just walk around?”

He motioned to the snow-covered ground. “Maybe build some snowmen?”

“Oh my god, can we?” Madison exclaimed, then gasped. “Oh— wait. You were being sarcastic.”

“Was I?” Dan asked rhetorically, bending down to pick up some snow. He packed it into a ball. “Don’t be so quick to judge.”

This time, they both laughed. It felt good.

As Madison crouched to begin forming her own snowball that would eventually become the snowman’s lower body, Dan turned around briefly to the direction he had been facing before. Looking for a pair of fashionably-dressed adults and their spawns.

Nowhere to be found.

Again, that draining feeling, weighing down his shoulders. Dan guessed it would always haunt him, as long as Blair and Chuck were in his life. Or— to put it more accurately— as long as he was in theirs. Because as much as his imagination narrated its own story, as much as his heart ached for the time he called Blair Waldorf his own, Dan knew it was their world. And he was just living in it.

He tossed the snowball into the air and watched it burst and fall, like diamonds. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed
> 
> I honestly don't know how people will interpret this. I only know what I intended. 
> 
> No hate to any of the characters, even Dan Humphrey. He's not my favorite but he is the most fascinating to write as the main character, the voyeuristic spectator who watches the other characters. I think that's what he always was.


End file.
